FLY AWAY PETER
Page 30
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il IIS WELK IN I) Sir Peter Lazarus will walk out of the I )epartment of Transport's hideous headqllarterS 2 Marsham Street for the last time as Permanent Secretary. (Fans of the Prime .111t1 IIIS — favourite television programme Yes, Minister will not need telling that the Permanent Secretary is the top civil servant 111 (;OVerIIIIICIIII I )epartment).
Sir Peter is retiring (a few months early) after a civil service career of 36 years. Nothing unusual in that, of
course. but he has spent nearly 01 Ii in the Department of Transport and its many-named predecessors. That is unusual for .1 1Y1 p Permanent Secretary. Most have come from outside; Sir Peter's successor Alan Bailey (plain Mr Bailev for the moment, but give hint nine) has come from the Treasury, as did most of his predecessors.
Trade association officials, trade unionists, journalists (including this one) and others who have dealt with Sir Peter over the years will appreciate the significance of his retirement.
But, despite Yes, Minister few people at the sharp end of the industry will be very interested. There will be no immediate impact. NR: shares will not go up or down in price. Contrallowsy,stems on die motorways will be as bad as ever. True. British Rail fares will rise, but that is already announced. And if the Channel fixed link decision is not taken next montli„is promised by Margaret •lhatcher and President Mitterand, it will be for political reasons, not because Sir Peter is no longer at the helm.
But the change does matter to the industry. Sir Peter's knowledge of the industry has not been gained 011ly over desks and dinner tables. He believed in seeing things for himself. So when Ministers arrived with bright ideas he Was able to test these against his knowledge of what really happens in the field. This did not always put them off, of course. To find out how many bright but impracticable ideas were scotched by his knowledge we shall have to wait until the archives containing, the current I Yip files are opened under the 341-year rule. But at least the politicians were put in touch with reality, even if they often chose to ignore it.
The road transport industry. (even, I am sure, the Bus and Coach Council's Denis Quin) has special cause to be grateful to Sir Peter over the initial applicatitin in this country of the EEC drivers' hours regulation. Under the treaty governing our accession to the EEC tilt's(' should have applied in full from January 1976. However. an obscure clause was found which enabled the E.Et C .oliiinission to put off the evil day for two years.
Meanwhile strenuous efforts were being made to get the rules amended before they had to be applied here. Sir Peter threw himself into these negotiations with vigour, although he had never had any dealings with the EEC. And at the last minute — Christmas Eve, I977 — a regulation was adopted which amended the rules and, more important. allowed them to be phased in over .1 three-year period. So the industry had eight years' respite from the eight-hour day and all that went with it.
As his retirement approached Sir Peter took fewer and fewer pains to conceal his concern about the public image of his department as the willing tool of the roads lobby. tie reli.Tred to it quite openly when addressing this year's Fleet Management Conference. This image has Mally 111.unit:stations. of which the most memorable is probably the television programme Brass Tacks early last year. Road transport people are incredulous at this when they consider all their complaints about the I Ylrp's activities (and sometimes its inactivities). But there is no doubting the public perception.
The incident of this sort to affect Sir Peter most personally was the "Peeler memoranduni'• of 1978. Ht. was asked to advise Ministers on what w do about lorry weights, and got one of his subordinates to write him a
memorandum suggesting an inquiry. This leaked to the press via Transport 2000. and was interpreted as proving that the DTp Was conspiring to force heavier lorries onto British roads. This prompted letter to The Guardian which asked —With civil servants like .. . Peter Lazarus . . who needs a British Road Fedt..ration?''
The subsequent controversy, which still surfaces (sometimes in unlikely places). completely ignored the fact that the request fOr advice came front Ministers, not one of the supposedly road-biased officials.
No doubt Alan Bailey will want to make changes in the way his new department is run. Perhaps this is an appropriate time to suggest one.
The department ought to be inure open and honest in its dealings with the press and, through it, the public. The most recent example to spring to mind is the affair of the traffic examiners' allowances ((hAI, September 7). Originally the I Yip denied that there had been any cuts. But RI weeks later it admitted that there had been, though they could not (or would not) say by how much. And the discussion was then brought to a close by clamping down on the stall concerned.
Now DTp Ministers are boasting about their present enforcement effort, let alone the terrors in store for any cowboys who manage to penetrate Nicholas Ridley's new invigorated and deregulated bus industry. (I jest, of course.) So it would have been understandable if the department did not announce simultaneously that the resources available for enforcement were being reduced.
But since that was happening it is intolerable that it should be denied whep a journalist (not this one — I am grinding no axe) gets hold of the facts. It would have been unthinkable a few years ago. It ought to remain that way.
From now on, though, Sir Peter can cease to worry about such matters. I wish hint a long and happy retirement — and many in the transport industry will join me.
• by Janus